LOS ANGELES—Electric vehicles are supposed to be light, aerodynamic and, well, small. Right? As we found out recently, that's not always true. How about commercial trucks? We've followed Wal-Mart's quest for lightweight efficiency, but big-business load bearers are actually pretty good candidates for electrification. Since delivery trucks run similar routes every day and return to the same spot after all the work is done, they can charge overnight. Electrorides will be offering the Zero truck to customers in September, but we got behind the wheel of a prototype earlier this week for a drive around Santa Monica.

The Specs
The Zero Truck is a Class 4 or 5 (depending on configuration) commercial truck based on the Isuzu NPR—one of the best sellers in the industry. The Zero Truck is an "Integration Package." In other words, participating dealers receive the Zero Truck conversion components in a few very large crates and up-fit the trucks on site. To become a Zero Truck, the Isuzu's gas or diesel powerplant is removed along with all the related hardware. In place of the internal combustion powertrain is a large, 100 kw, UQM liquid-cooled, DC brushless electric motor that receives juice from a 50 kw, recyclable lithium polymer battery pack that rides between the truck's frame rails.

Zero Trucks actually retain the stock GM automatic transmission, thanks to a proprietary, patent-pending coupler (they wouldn't tell us how it worked), so the driving experience is most like a conventional truck. The Zero Truck drive system adds roughly 600 pounds to the existing 7000-pound curb weight of a gas-powered NPR. The trucks come with an onboard charger and the battery pack takes 8 hours on 220 volts—or 12 hours—on 110 volts, for a complete charge.

The Drive
It's one thing to cruise around town in complete silence on an electric motorcycle or behind the wheel of an EV Mini Cooper. It's quite another to pilot a 7500-pound box truck. Luckily for pedestrians and bicyclists, the Zero Truck isn't completely silent. At times you can hear a compressor that's pressurizing the hydraulic lines for the conventional brake and steering systems. But even with the occasional whirring and whizzing, it's eerily quiet.

Once you're used to the size of this thing, it's easy to drive. Just twist the key, pull the gearshift into D3, and step on the accelerator. It drives fairly seamlessly. We had just recently rented an Isuzu NPR flatbed for moving. It was a gasoline model and, in comparison to the Zero Truck, it felt a bit slower—especially off the line. Electrorides officials say the Zero's electric motor creates about 400 lb.-ft. of torque and can light up the dual rear tires. We believe it.

Zero Trucks, depending on their configuration, can haul 4000 to 6000 pounds, but the ride wasn't too bad with an empty cargo box. These trucks will all have fairly aggressive regenerative braking, too. On a steep grade, Electrorides says, you'll be able to put up to 10 percent of the charge back into the battery. On our prototype, though, the regen brakes were dialed back to barely noticeable levels.

Our test drive only lasted about 35 minutes and covered around 12 miles—far short of the 100-mile range. But the Zero Truck guys promise we can try a production truck when they're ready.

The Bottom Line
So how long will that battery pack last? Electrorides says a full 10 years, assuming one charge/discharge cycle every day.

And now ... the cost: $126,000. That's about $100,000 more than the price of a normal Isuzu truck. About $50,000 of the cost, however, comes from the lithium polymer packs.

Expensive? Sure, but here's how the math apparently works out. With an E-truck, Electrorides says, business owners can control their fuel costs. They say a typical monthly payment on an Isuzu NPR is around $850 or $900. And the typical monthly gas or diesel fuel bill for a truck could range from $1200 to $1800, if you include oil changes and assume 100 miles driven per business day. The Zero Truck can be leased for seven years at $1900 a month, for example. And the cost to charge one of the EV haulers is about $3 off-peak here in Southern California—not bad at all.

Company officials say that within a year they'll be able to get battery pack ranges of 150 to 200 miles per charge. Electrorides is also working on a diesel-hybrid semi truck. And soon, they'll be the West Coast distributor for the Hybrid Technologies Mini Cooper. We'd like a second ride in that one, too.

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